But I'm back in hopes that The Weekly Roundup remains weekly and not biannually.

Long story short, this last semester of my life (because as a student, time is only broken down into semesters) was nothing short of hellish. Preface: I basically knew what I was getting into so I can't really complain. However, luck was definitely not on my side and between the heat wave, computer malfunctions, perpetual illness, lack of funds, car trouble and general sleep deprivation, I almost lost my mind. I absolutely lost a few pounds as well. It was a cluster.

But now that I'm on the other side of it all and had a few moments to breeeeeeeeeathe, I've decided to change course and I'm feeling pretty good about it. More on that in future posts.

Right now, I choose to talk about the goodness of life. If you know me, you know that this doesn't happen often. I'm the worst cynic alive and manage to find problems with EVERYTHING. Don't get me wrong, I think being realistic about everything is a healthy way to be but I can make puppies and rainbows and unicorns a negative thing. I have problems.

However, lately I've been gifted the opportunity to get outta town a couple times and it has been such a wonderful thing. Sometimes, you just have to escape and be separated from your priorities for a short time to realize how small they are and how they don't deserve your anxiety in the least. But what's better is these mini-trips were a gift from an incredibly generous human I have the pleasure to call a close friend. She's one of those people who has a tremendous amount of favor in her life and is constantly paying it forward. Her sharing capabilities are off the charts and she basically makes me smile when I think of her. Again, if you know me, few people actually make me smile when I think of them. We shall call this little treasure "Buddy".

For New Year's Eve, we had the pleasure of using one of buddy's client's mansion cabins in Big Bear at no cost to us. So of course, Buddy went to great lengths to plan a less than 24 hour trip where we went hog-wild sledding and coloring and eating and barely making it to midnight. It was basically my childhood, save for the added spiked libations to keep our innards warm. We enjoyed ourselves beyond expectation.

Buddy is the best.

We keep it weird...

… and very rarely bring it back to normal.

Buddy in a nutshell.

New Year's Resolution? Not so much. Resolutions seem like a sure fire way to crash and burn and fail. Instead, let's all just try to be better people than we were the day before. Go, team, go!